Levering device for lifting and for moving furniture



'0. s. OLESON ET-AL LEvERiNG DEVICE FOR LIFTING AND FOR MOVING FURNITURE Nov} 4, 1958 Filed July 22. 1954 INVENTORS OLE s. OLESON DONALD E. VaaWEY AT 7DRNEYS 2,859,012 Patented Nov. 4, 1958 I LEVERING DEVICE FOR LI FTING AND FOR MOVING FURNITURE Ole S. Oleson and Donald E. Van Wey, Redwood City, Calif.

Application July 22, 1954, Serial No. 445,002

1 Claim. c1. 254-8) This invention relates to a levering device for use in lifting and moving loads such as relatively heavy furniture and other articles.

One of the objects of the invention is the provision of a levering device, as distinguished from a jack, that is adapted to be easily manipulated by an inexperienced relatively weak person or child for lifting a relatively heavy load and for moving it over a floor, whether the floor is carpeted or not, with safety and without injury to the floor or floor covering.

Where one person is engaged in the cleaning of a room, it frequently happens that such person is unable to clean a carpet, floor or rug that is below a heavy piece of furniture, such for instance, as a davenport or sofa for the reason that such furniture is quite low and is too heavy for such person to lift or to move. Load lifting devices, such as dollies and jacks are not suitable for household use for the reason that they are usually quite cumbersome, heavy, bulky, relatively complicated devices and are incapable of being lowered to say an inch or less above the surface of a floor or carpet to engage below a piece of furniture that is at no greater height than an inchor less above the floor or carpet.

In order to be suitable for home use and for use by unskilled persons or even children, a lifting device must be light in weight, small, and free from complicated mechanical devices such as screws, adjustable posts, etc.

Fig. 3 is a fragmentary enlarged elevational view of a portion of the device of Fig. l as seen from the opposite side of the device from Fig. 1.

. Fig. 4 is a fragmentary bottom plan view of a portion of the device of Fig. l but with part of the'device removed to clearly show structure.

Fig. 5 is a top plan view of a portion of the device of Fig. 1.

Fig. 6 is a reduced elevational view of the device 0 Fig. lin operation. 0 n

In detail, the invention is illustrated as embodied in a generally L-shaped device comprisinga straight, vertical elongated handle or lever bar 1 that is preferably of about three feet in length. This bar is provided with a smooth, rounded surface at its upper end that may be the relatively soft outer surface of a rubber hand grip 2 that extends over the upper end of the bar. l

Rigidly secured to the lower end of the bar 1 and extend ing generally at a right angle to the bar is a horizontally extending, elongated foot member generally designated 3. This foot member has a relatively short heel portion 4 and a much longer toe portion 5. The toe portion in its ver tical dimension tapers away from the heel portion to a relatively thin horizontally extending edge that extends the full width of the foot member, the latter being of uniform width from the outer end of the toe portion to the terminating end of the heel portion, and oblong in outline. The thin projecting end or toe portion 5 is of such vertical dimension when the foot member is positioned with its longitudinal axis extending substantially horizontally as to pass freely under a low lying part of It is the purpose and object of this invention to provide a levering device that is extremely light in weight, and that will take up even less space than a broom, and that can be easily operated by a child or relatively weak person by a simple single lever action to elevate a sufiicient portion of a heavy load onto wheels so that the space below such load can be cleaned or the load itself can be easily moved by such person, and which load, when elevated onto said device will automatically be supported thereon with no further attention from the person.

It should be pointed out that with the present invention the load is not only adapted to be automatically supported in elevated position on the device of this invention, but where the floor surface is bare or is a carpet or rug, the device will easily move over such surface without the slightest marring, tearing or other injury to such surface, and the lowering of such load back to its original position is even more easily accomplished than the act of elevating the load.

A still further object of the invention is the provision of means in a device of the character above described that enables a heavy load to be lifted and lowered with safety to the load and without causing any injury to the latter, such as scarring, marring or the like.

Other objects and advantages will appear in the description and in the drawings.

In the drawings Fig. 1 is a side elevational view of a device illustrative of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an elevational view of the device of Fig. 1 as seen at right angles to Fig. l.

- foot member over the floor.

an object to be elevated.

The heel portion 4 of the foot member 3 terminates between and Within the laterally projected confines of a pair of corresponding, coaxial, floor wheels 6, and which floor wheels are spaced apart a substantially greater distance than the diameter of each wheel to provide a solid support for said foot member;

An axle 7 connects said wheels and supports the said foot member at its heel portion for movement of the said When the bar 1 is vertical the axle 7 supports the foot member 3 elevated above the floor with the outer end of the toe portion preferably at a level below the level of the upper sides of wheels 6, or within the projected confines of the space between said wheels; and the said outer end of the toe portion when at a line) will be accomplished by swinging the lever bar 1 forwardly to the broken line position 12.

Pivotally secured to the outer end of the toe portion of foot member 3, and overlying and in engagement with the upper surface of said outer end, is a rectangular substantially flat object engaging plate 15 that extends the full width of the foot member.

The said outer end of the toe portion 5 is cut away at opposite sides to form a pair of coaxial rigid pivots 16 on an axis transverse to the longitudinal axis of the foot member, (Fig.4). 7 t

Integral with the plate 15 at one of its side edges is a circular, depending annular member 17 (Fig. 3), that is adapted to slip over one of the two pivots 16, and at the other side edge is a similar structure except that a side of such annular member is removed to provide depending spaced elements 18, 19 (Fig. 1) that extend downwardly to opposite sides of the other pivot 16. The element 18, being longer than element 19 is then bent partially around said other pivot 16 to prevent withdrawal or removal of the plate 15 from the pivots. The plate then may swing from its position as seen in Fig. 1, and substantially parallel with the top side of the foot member, through substantially 90 degrees to a position extending substantially perpendicularly thereto and over the outer edge of the terminating outer end of toe portion 5 (Fig. 6).

The upper side of plate is preferably roughened (Fig. 5) or milled to provide an anti-friction surface.

An elongated leaf spring may be secured to the underside of the toe portion 5 in a groove extending longitudinally of the latter for yieldable engagement of its outer end with a short extension 21 of the plate 15 beyond the terminating outer end of the toe portion 5 to yieldably urge the plate 15 back to horizontally disposed full line position in Fig. 1 when said plate is swung to the position seen in Fig. 2.

The length of the foot member from the axis of the wheels 6 to the terminating outer end of the toe portion is preferably about a fourth or fifth the distance from said axis to'the outer end of the lever bar which serves as a floor engaging portion as hereinafter explained.

The vertical thickness of the outer end of said foot portion at its toe end, including plate 15, is preferably less than an inch so as to enable said plate and said outer end to be slipped into a space that is less than an inch in height.

In operation, the operator inserts the plate 15 and outer end of the toe portion 5 into the space below the object to be lifted, which, for example, may be the forward edge of a davenport or sofa having legs no longer than say about one inch in length. The levering device will then be in a stable position preparatory to lifting the davenport or sofa. The bar 1 is then swung downwardly until the floor engaging portion at its outer end engages the floor. Since the bar 1 is positioned between the axis of the wheels 6 and the toe of the foot member, the outer end of the toe member will pass across center (Fig. 6) when the outer floorengaging portion of the bar 1 engages the floor, and therefore the center of weight of the load will be adjacent to the wheels but between the wheels and the floor engaging outer end portion of bar 1 and the bar and wheels will then alone automatically take the entire weight of the load that has been elevated. When the levering device is in this, its stable object supporting, position, the foot member 3 extends substantially vertically but with the plate pivot axis within the right angle included between the floor where engaged by the floor engaging portion of the handle 1 and .a line extending vertically from the journal axis of the wheels. This will enable the operator to leave the levering device supporting said load and clean under the sofa from the elevated side. If the sofa is to be moved, this is very easily done without touching the levering device, but by merely moving the sofa since the wheels will support a sufficient amount of the load to reduce the frictional resistance of the sofa on the floor to a point where it can be moved with little effort by a child or person of relatively slight strength.

It is seen that relatively little, in fact only a minor fractional part, of the weight is actually taken by the floor engaging portion of the bar 1, hence the wheels will readily move over a floor, whether carpeted or bare, or over a rug on the floor, without pulling on the carpet or rug or without substantial retarding by dragging of the handle floor engaging portion on the fioor, a result that could not be accomplished if the bar 1 were not free from obstruction to its movement into engagement with the floor at its outer end when the toe portion is past a vertical center. Obviously if the bar 1 were slanted or curved in direction away from the side to which the toe portion extends to a point past a vertical line extending through the axis of the wheels when the toe portion is horizontal, the toe portion could not pass a vertical center by swinging the bar to the floor and the device would not be capable of functioning to accomplish the desired results.

The concept essential to the present invention is a levering device capable of elevating a heavy load by a lever action of a bar, and which load is an inch or less from the floor at the start, and then automatically supporting the major portion of said load on floor wheels with a very minor portion of the load on the outer end of the lever bar so that an operator can readily move the load over a floor without further attention to the levering device and without touching it, and which device will not injure, tear, drag or otherwise effect a floor, carpet or rug over which the device is rolled with the load thereon.

We claim:

A generally L-shaped levering device for elevating objects such as furniture from a horizontal floor and for supporting objects so elevated for movement over the floor, comprising an elongated foot member having a thin projecting end of such vertical dimension when said member is positioned with its longitudinal axis extending substantially horizontally as to pass freely under a low lying part of an object to be elevated; a pair of horizontally spaced floor wheels journalled on said foot member adjacent to the end thereof remote from said thin projecting end and supporting said foot member for movement over the floor; a substantially fiat object engaging plate; means pivotally supporting said plate on said thin projecting end of said foot member for movement about an axis transverse to said longitudinal axis through substantially degrees between two operative positions with respect to said foot member; and an elongated handle connected at its inner end to said foot member and extending generally at a right angle to said foot member, said handle having a floor engaging portion adjacent its outer end spaced from the wheel journal axis a distance several times the length of said foot member, whereby when said levering device is rotated to an object supporting position in which said floor engaging portion on said handle engages the floor the object will be supported in elevated position by said floor engaging portion and said wheels, said floor engaging portion and said wheels being the only parts of said device engageable with the floor when said device is in said object supporting position, said generally L-shaped levering device being movable through an angle of substantially 90 degrees about the wheel journal axis selectively to two stable positions, in one of which positions said foot member extends along the floor with said object engaging plate positioned substantially horizontally and parallel to said foot member and with said device supported by the engagement of said foot member and said wheels with said floor and with said handle projecting upwardly, and in the other of which positions only said floor engaging portion of said handle and said wheels engage the floor, said foot member extends substantially vertically but with said transverse pivot axis within the right angle included between the floor where engaged by said floor engaging portion and a line extending vertically from the journal axis of said wheels, and said object engaging plate is substantially horizontal and at a right angle to said foot member, the greater distance of said floor engaging portion from said wheel journal axis than the length of said foot member providing for the supporting of only a minor fraction of the weight of the object by said floor engaging portion of said handle, so that said wheels are readily movable over said floor without substantial retarding by dragging of said fioor engaging portion on the floor.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 337,870 Roberts -L Mar. 16, 1886 1,307,600 Rose et al June 24, 1919 2,195,667 Baker Mar. 13, 1939 2,585,856 Schmeider Feb. 12, 1952 FOREIGN PATENTS 184,067 Great Britain Aug. 10, 1922 469,146 Germany Dec. 5, 1928 

